Senior Lifestyles

Retirement-Havens.com listed Los Altos among the top 150 retirement places in the United States - and it's not easy to pass the R-H criteria.

Guy Miles of Louisiana was annoyed with the misinformation targeted at senior citizens looking for a place to retire.

A retired research director, clinical psychologist and corporate president, Miles, 82, knew good - and bad - research when he saw it. The problem, he said, was that much of the information being pitched to seniors about the best retirement cities was nothing more than slick ad campaigns. The most famous "Best Places to Live" used criteria that did not address the special needs of seniors.

"No place is perfect. Yet I couldn't find a single resource that pointed out both the good and bad features of potential places to retire," Miles said.

To fill the gap, Miles developed his own list of best places to retire, one that used the most current scientific and social data available and factored in distance from medical specialists, the availability of reliable public transportation and safety from crime and environmental dangers such as extreme temperatures, hurricanes, floods, tornados, air pollution, earthquakes and wildfires.

After more than a decade and thousands of hours of labor, Miles launched a just-the-facts, no-frills Web site, which pinpoints the 150 "Top Choice" cities for retirement in the United States. It includes tools and data to help seniors select the city that best meets their individual needs. The highly trafficked site charges no user fees and limits advertising space to better protect and serve its target audience.

"This is a site about the best places for the elderly to retire," Miles said. "It's not for up-and-coming entrepreneurs or new college graduates. It's not for those seeking the best place to bring up kids. It's for the retiring older person. So, the choices are widely different than those in other lists, such as the one put out by Money magazine."

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